Journey's End
by Dancing Darkness
Summary: It was only the end of the world again so why did it hurt so much? Why did he have to lose everything again? A oneshot from the Doctor's POV at the end of the 4th series, 8th part of the unexpected series.


Hey there! I'm back! Sorry this took a bit longer than normal but I just moved back to uni so things have been a bit hectic. The flatpack bookcase of doom is also causing continued issues.

Anywho this is the **8th part of the Unexpected series** and is centred on the Doctor's point of view. The day when everything fell apart.

Enjoy and please review!

---

**Journey's End**

It was only the end of the world again. Something he'd seen a million times in a thousand different forms. Two cataclysmic forces met and clashed. Unstoppable Force meets Immovable Object. They ground together, struggled and fought until one was thrown down and defeated. Why was he always the Immovable Object?

He could taste it again. It raised the hairs on his skin. His instincts screamed. Yet again the end had come. But this wasn't just a world ender; this was the end of reality itself. He could taste the fear and the loss and the pain and the insanity of it all and, in that moment, he'd just about had enough.

When they lost the Earth he'd thought that was it. He could do anything. Anything! Except find one tiny planet, one tiny primitive planet vanished in a way even the TARDIS could not follow. One tiny planet that rotated at one thousand miles per hour and orbited the sun and sixty seven thousand. A planet with six billion people, more than four thousand major cities and one point thirty five sextillion litres of water with one million and forty three thousand square kilometres of land. How had they stolen all that? _How_?

It was worse than that because among all those life forms, all those animals and people there was one little boy that meant the world to him. John had been working on a project, nothing heart stopping just some homework. He'd elected to do it at Donna's so he could use the bath tub, she didn't mind so the Doctor had agreed he'd pick him up later. Donna's parents had of course been told to tell no one that John was his son – safer that way. He'd felt the anxiety that had been building up for months then, the prickling on his neck that indicated something was coming. He'd ignored it and if he felt any regret he certainly felt it now. How he wished he'd just listened to his own instincts.

The Shadow Proclamation wanted war of course. War across the stars. It wasn't just Earth missing. But a war would solve nothing. Nothing at all. He felt his stomach dropping. What if he never saw his son again? Never saw that bright smile and those young eyes? Never felt him drop down from a hiding position onto his shoulders to surprise him? There was so much he wanted to show John, _needed_ to show John.

How had things come to this?

Of course, it wasn't the first time John had been in danger because of him. Because of the way he lived his life. When he'd become human, what if he hadn't changed back and left John alone? The return of the Master was also a prime example. If he'd found out about John...the Doctor didn't even want to contemplate it. The weeping Angels and the falling Titanic with its nuclear storm drive. The Sontaran invasion and that whole business with the shuttle on Midnight. So many times when he could've died and John would've been left alone or, worse, John could've died. So many close calls. Too many.

Was he really safe? Was John safe with him? Or was he holding his son close out of a selfish fear to lose anyone else the way he'd lost Jenny and his own people. Too many had died for his sake. Far too many and he was beyond tired of it.

When they found Earth there was this incredible sense of elation but also of fear. When he'd been contacted by all his allies, allies he'd forgotten he had, John was not among them. The word 'Daleks' had led him to fear the worst. He'd landed close to Donna's with the express intention of finding his son. The streets had been empty and dread had filled his heart, tears beginning in his eyes.

Then he'd seen _her_. Then he'd seen Rose. For a moment the fear vanished. His hearts pounded in his ears and the world seemed to stop. His legs couldn't run fast enough to reach her, the one person he'd been looking for all this time. Maybe they could be a family? Him and Rose and John. John had always wanted a mother and he'd always missed Rose.

The extermination blast had blindsided him completely. As he felt his nervous system being incinerated in her arms his thoughts were that it was too soon to change. Not when he'd just managed to bring it all together. He tried to blink away the pain and reach his mind out for John but he couldn't see.

He denied his regeneration change. It was after all a conscious choice. By the time he'd finished it was too late, the Daleks had them. He'd forced a grin on his face to cover his fear for his son and dealt with the situation at hand. As bad as things were Rose was still here with him and that brought a sense of untold euphoria.

He almost lost hope when he stepped out to see all those Daleks. Almost lost hope when the TARDIS was plunged into the neutrino core with Donna still inside. All that pain wrapped around his heart and threatened to crush him. He, who could do anything, was powerless to save the people he loved. A familiar sensation. Even as Rose took his hand he knew that she knew that all he could feel right then was pain.

How was he to know of the oncoming human biological meta-crisis? How was he to know what Donna was to do?

It was only after the battle was won, won in the most unlikely of ways, that the most difficult decision he'd ever made came. Harder than the decision to destroy Gallifrey even.

It was discussed between the three of them; him, his duplicate and Donna. Discussed in a way humans could not fathom, with their minds. Even while they celebrated with everyone they held a very sobering conversation.

Rose would not be able to stay with him. Of this they were certain. She would go back to the parallel world and take the human version of him with her, someone who could age and grow old and share with her. That was decided very, very quickly.

The harder decision was what to do with John. He was almost six and too young to be alone. His human self made a bid to keep John with him, give him a traditional family and home with a mother.

He, of course, bid the other way. John was a Time Lord, he would watch them wither and die and it would break him as it would break the Doctor. John was also a survivor of their kind and there was a legacy he had to uphold. He should stick with his own.

Donna didn't make a decision, qualified to do so as she was now that she had a Time Lord brain. She stood neutral ground because she believed this was a decision for the father and the father alone.

They'd reached a stalemate. An ultimatum and neither would budge. For the first time the Doctor felt he was being truly, truly selfish. He loved his son and he didn't want to lose him. Not now, not after they'd actually managed to survive.

At the end of the day it was John that made the decision. It was John that chose. He reached out to them across the distance even as they towed Earth home, sought out their minds amidst the joyous chaos.

He felt the familiar tickle of John's mind against his own, clumsy, childish and warm. For a second he also felt a smaller hand take his, a brush against his senses. Out of the corner of his eye he swore he could see his son for just a moment.

John chose to stay with him.

He knew the duplicate, the human self, was devastated. Or would have been if not for John's words.

"It wouldn't work," that small, familiar voice said. "You and Rose will have children of your own and where will that put me? How would I fit in to that?" he asked, it was gentle but stern. The cool logic of a Time Lord mind. "I'm no human child, it would not be fair to unconsciously compare them to me."

"I wouldn't do that," the human self insisted.

"You would without meaning to." He felt John gritting his teeth for what he was about to say next and even he could not deny the words were hurtful: "besides, what can you as a human offer me? A family? I have one. I itch if I stand still and I am a breed meant to wander the stars. I cannot do that with you."

His human self looked to the side discretely, so no one would notice.

"Also," John continued, "would it be fair to ask me to watch you die? To watch you and Rose die as I continued to live on? I have thirteen more faces to wear, I could potentially live for millennia. It will be easier to do so the fewer people I see die don't you think?"

He had them there, completely had them.

"We could offer you a mother," the human self said quietly, eyes pleading in his mind.

John sighed, they could all feel it. He squared his small shoulders and glared bravely forward. "I have a mother. She's called Sarah Jane and Martha and Donna. A mother is someone there at every important moment and they were there. I wish Rose had been there but she _wasn't_, she just _wasn't_. Horrible as it is to think she is not my mother."

"This is your final choice?" the human self asked disheartened.

"Yes," John replied with a tone of finality. "But don't worry, you're still part of my dad and I still love you. I'll always be there in your heart where it matters. You have a whole life to live, an ordinary life. The adventure I can never have and you know that." They felt John grin. "Do me proud and make it an adventure worth having!"

His human self smiled back and the deal was sealed.

The next question was harder to deal with. "Do we tell Rose?" Donna inquired thoughtfully.

There was silence, considering silence while each of them, even John, turned the problem over mentally.

"It wouldn't be fair," John said at last, "If I'm staying here. It would be cruel to tell her of a child she would never know. Could never know."

The human self agreed, "she may never be able to love any of her other children as completely, might never be able to let go of the first man she loved." That hurt.

He knew they were right of course, Rose needed to let go. It still hurt though. "Are you okay with that, John?" he asked at last, mentally placing a hand on his son's shoulder.

"Dad, she hasn't known about me for six years," his son replied. "A few more isn't gonna make a difference."

He felt the bravery that it took John to say those words. The determination. He was proud of his son and his will to self-sacrifice. Again he felt so terribly selfish. But the argument was done. The decision was made.

As they dropped the others off, he felt a sense of disconnection from everything, as if he were looking through glass. He was happy of course, they'd just saved the world. But he couldn't stop the guilt in his heart. It was hardest when they dropped Rose off in that windswept bay. Hard seeing her kiss a man that was him and at the same time not him. He turned because he couldn't bare it anymore and disappeared into the distance – a trick he'd long ago perfected. All the while he cried in his heart.

What he did to Donna was harder. He made her not his Donna any more. It was to save her but he would miss her terribly. In his entire life he'd never had such a good friend and after nine hundred years that was saying something. Why did everyone that touched him get hurt? He was so tired. So very tired.

Watching her on the bed laying there was the hardest, not as hard as explaining to her mother and grandfather. Then he had an armful of John as his little boy threw himself into his father's arms because he could feel his pain and wanted to make it better. He lifted the boy against his chest and hugged him close, burying his nose in his hair. His son was real. Nothing bad had happened. Together they mourned for Donna, the closest thing to a mother John had ever had.

But the fear remained. That little secret fear he tried so desperately to ignore. What if John got really hurt like everyone else? What if he was a virus that destroyed, as Davros had said? Was he truly safe? Even for John?

But in that moment he didn't care. He'd saved the world and his little boy, the most precious thing in the universe to him, was safe. Nothing else mattered.

-----

What did you think? I didn't want a too happy ending because, even though it's the ultimate irony, I wanted it to have a sense of realism. I miss Donna and always will. She was freaking awesome!

Please review and support the starving ego....

- D


End file.
